[yermom]

there was a time in the 90's where i was between jobs and enrollments where i was trading for cards that were easily sold for cash. Howling Mines, Nevinyrral's Disk, Birds of Paradise, dual lands. any of those were $5 cash, almost instantly. most duals cost me about $3. it's insane what they go for now.

trading has gotten way more formal and less fun now. also they print way too many garbage cards that are worth nothing. the first few sets they couldn't keep up with demand, and those are the cards that are still pretty expensive.

now the sets are hit and miss. back in the day, i think stores and lack of supply and general usage of the internet kept rares in the couple of dollar range and up. now there are "bulk rares" that are like $.10 or so. or there are staple cards that are common that are $5 or more, and foil ultra rares that can be triple digits in price even in print, but those are the exception, not the rule.

still having some of the old cards and seeing the prices on the secondary market, my fear would be that some new Hasbro CEO could come in and just rescind the reserved list and basically just print money in the short term and rerelease the paper cards like they did online.